Smartwatches Suck, Says Pebble Backer

NEW YORK -- There are only two significant platforms in the smartwatch arena and neither are up to snuff, according to Pebble’s Myriam Joire. The chief evangelist discussed the past, present, and future of smartwatches at Wearable Tech Expo, held here July 22 through 24.

“Other than Pebble [Steel] and Moto 360, I don’t think we have a smartwatch that looks good. More than ever with wearables, it’s super personal. You want this thing to reflect who you are. Customization is super important with gorgeous designs, choices of materials, shapes, and sizes,” Joire said in her keynote speech.

While Pebble and Android Wear-based Moto 360 take the cake for best smartwatches in a burgeoning field, both smartwatches are battling charging, display, and usability challenges. Chief among these issues is battery life - Pebble’s original 130 milliamp battery can last up to a week while Android Wear devices may be sucked dry in a day. Joire noted that a 15 minute charge could juice a Pebble watch for a day.

“[Battery] dictates a whole bunch of technology. If you want to make a wearable device, your software and your hardware need to be super efficient -- that means picking the right display, the right processor, picking the right radio communication,” she said. “That also means your OS needs to be lightweight. Android, Tizen is not going to cut it, they’re heavy OSes based on Linux. You need a real-time OS based on a Cortex M3 or M4.”

She said charging methods are another hurdle to widespread smartwatch adoption, pointing to wireless charging as a near-term alternative to using micro USB connectors that take up valuable real estate. She called out AT&T as a supplier of wireless charging devices and encouraged the company to stick with Qi - an inductive-based coil system - instead of promoting its proprietary system, Powermat, to grow the wearable industry.

“What we’re trying to do now is to rally a whole bunch of the other manufacturers to get them on board with a standardized connector that’s waterproof and low profile,” she said. “But making a watch waterproof and wireless-charging capable is difficult because of the size of the coil.”

Battery life in smartwatches -- and most mobile devices, for that matter -- are often compromised by display. Joire said displays in the smartwatch market were a “pick your poison” situation where users can opt for a daytime-readable display in black-and-white, or a more draining high-resolution color display.

“There is no magic pill. You have to pick one. For the next two years wearables will be suffering from this problem… Until then, solutions are compromised. We’d like to have color, more resolution, but in daylight you can’t beat [smartphone displays].”

Successful smartwatches of the future will also go beyond Bluetooth LE and smartphone-based connectivity. She envisioned a system of smart personal area networks to connect devices, perhaps brought online by a credit card-sized device with an RF chip that users charge monthly.

“Creating a secure world around your body, that’s the future and the present and foreseeable future of connectivity for wearables,” she said, adding that users will also need to trust manufactures. “You need to trust the tech world and give us your data. That’s the only way we're going to be able to predict what you want to do. Context is key.”

Creating context and positive use-cases in daily life is key to making smartwatches accessible to the masses. Samsung’s Galaxy Gear, she noted, is too specialized to make the leap beyond early adopters and tech-savvy users.

“You need to keep things simple. Right now my beef with a lot of the technology I use today is it’s not simple enough,” she said. “If you want to go beyond early adopters… The people who buy a watch at Target don’t want to do anything. They want to take it out of the box and have it add value to their lives.”

Smartwatches of the future should focus less on complex modes of operation, Joire concluded, and instead set sights on simplicity and out-of-the-box usability.

Mainstream smartwatches carry little value , hence they "suck". An no - fashion is not really a good value for most people - or else they would have wore regular watches.

On the other hand, niche watches(and wearables) can carry a strong value. There is/was a strong market for wearables for runners with all those limits.

So there's a need to :

1. Define a lot of the niche use cases of wearables .There are enough. People have enough real problems that can be helped by wearables.[1]

2. Build a horizonal platform that could programmably serve many of those needs, hence achieving scale, and good prices.

My theory is that given a real use and decent prices many people will be willing to settle on battery life on the one hand(or not settle, they'll only need it a few hours a day) , and on the other hand , volumes will drive improvements.

I totally agree with you, Jim. The first vendor which developed a wristwatch, in fact, turns out to be none other than Cartier. Brazilian aviator Santos Dumont -- who was living in Paris -- had asked Cartier to develop a watch he can wear around his wrist. (Until then there was no such thing called a wrist watch!) While he was flying, the aviator needed to check his time but he didn't want to waste his time by taking out a pocket watch from his pocket. (Much like most young people today reach into their pocket to look for a smartphone to find what time it is now)

The McGregor Rule - To be successful in wearables, it must be fashionable or invisible! I agree with the smartwatch evaluation. I believe it is jewelry makers that have the best shot at making smartwatches a success.

One thing that's not clear to me is this: after having acknolwedged that the current generation of smartwatches suck, where should they go from here? Will the whole concept of smartwatches need to be redefined? Or with no immediate technologies out there to solve battery issues, will there be no way out for smartwatch vendors?